


Hang 'em High

by Davethedraugr



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Companionable Snark, Drug Use, Fluff, Gen, Hancock and Cait BFFs, Hancock's invented games, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 14:19:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7511606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davethedraugr/pseuds/Davethedraugr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sole Survivor Etta has some personal business she needs to attend to and drops Cait off at Hangman's Alley, expecting her to get some much needed rest and relaxation.  Unfortunately, Hancock is bored and has other ideas...</p><p>A Fallout Big Bang Story, accompanying <a href="http://quantumghoul.tumblr.com/private/147524603783/tumblr_oafxqrTgtm1v95ja8">artwork</a> by <a href="http://vizarding.tumblr.com/">quantumghoul</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Hang 'em High

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Fallout fic, and I couldn't be happier with my collaborator quantumghoul. The amazing artwork he created for this story is [here](http://quantumghoul.tumblr.com/private/147524603783/tumblr_oafxqrTgtm1v95ja8) . Check out the rest of his work [here](http://seealandraw.tumblr.com/) and [his Fallout blog](http://quantumghoul.tumblr.com/)

Hancock was sleeping on the couch when Etta slipped through the red door on the south end of the alley. He knew her gait well, having followed her around the Commonwealth for weeks. The tromp of combat boots and clatter of heavy weaponry was a bit of a giveaway too.

He cracked open his eyes, gummy from the short nap he'd been taking. At least he thought it had been a short nap. It had been light out when he laid down, and it was still light. Though the two buildings that formed Hangman's Alley made it impossible to tell the exact time, except at noon.

Cait had slipped in right behind Etta and kicked the door shut with a bang. Etta spun around and put a finger first to her lips, then pointed it at him. The intent clear, but already foiled. She was thoughtful like that. It must have been a bigger concern back then, as he couldn't think of a single other person who would have given a shit about waking him. He paid her back by keeping his eyes slitted, and maintaining the steady, breathing movements.

"There's no way he can hear us," Cait said, her brogue out in force today. "Damn Chem-head's dead to tha world."

Etta gave Cait a sour look, and the fighter snapped her mouth shut, a hint of pink creeping up her neck and into her cheeks. They walked further into the alley and Etta collapsed onto the couch across from his. A considerably less comfy piece of upholstery in his expert opinion. Cait tried to walk past, but Etta caught her belt and yanked her down. "Just sit with me for a minute," she said, and Cait did, legs stuck out, head leaning on Etta's well armored shoulder.

They sat like that for long enough that Hancock could feel himself getting sleepy again when Cait broke the silence. "Are you sure ya don't want me coming along? You know how good I am with me hands." He saw Cait twitch her arm and Etta started squealing and trying to squirm away. Cait, expert grappler that she was, held the taller woman close even as her laughter turned into squawks and violent writhing. She finally gasped out, "Uncle! Uncle!" and Cait disengaged, coiling up into a defensible position to discourage counterattack.

Etta's dark cheeks burned like a campfire's morning coals. She was gasping for breath, but there was a look of joy on her face that made his shriveled up heart ache. When the aftershock giggles died down and she was able to reassert control over her diaphragm, Etta said, "Oh I know you are, but I need to go somewhere dexterous hands aren't going to be of much use." Cait opened her trap to argue, but Etta cut her off, "and where your smart mouth would be a downright liability."

"You're absolutely sure?" Cait asked, but it came out like a plea. "I get that you're not expecting a lot of gunplay, but I can't imagine anywhere that it wouldn't pay to have someone to watch yer back."

"I know," Etta said and pressed her forehead to the other woman's. "I wish you could come. I don't want to do this alone, but I don't have a choice. The best way for you to help me now is to stay right here so I don't have to worry about you getting eaten by a Deathclaw while I'm there. Can you do that for me?"

Cait grabbed the bar on Etta's chestpiece and pulled her in for a deep kiss. It took everything in Hancock's power to keep his slack, 'I'm asleep' mouth from widening into a leer. His willpower totally focused on keeping those muscles in check, other parts of his body had free reign to follow their natural inclinations. Somebody's lip got bit, and somebody else was not keeping their tongue to themselves. If the kiss went on any longer, Hancock would find it very necessary to shift certain parts of his anatomy. Thankfully, with one last full court press Cait pulled back. "Can do Lover. Just be safe out there."

"I will," Etta said, and stood. "Just think of it this as a nice break from having to haul my junk around the 'Wealth."

"Speaking o'which," Cait said with a note of rebuke creeping into her voice. "You should take these with you." She unslung a basebat, and a long rifle and handed them over. Then spent a moment fishing around in her pockets before producing three grenades and dropping them in Etta's outstretched hand. "Like me Ma always said, 'Better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it."

Etta took the proffered weapons, neatly slotting them into a scabbard, a backholster and a jury-rigged fannypack respectively. "Thanks. I'll think of you when I use them." She moved quickly back to where they'd come in, and with a quietly blown kiss, slipped back out onto the streets.

Cait slumped back down onto the couch and let out a cry that was half groan, half keen. He heard her draw in several deep breaths then she called out, "You can quit pretending ya old faker. I saw those 8 balls you call eyes peepin' at us."

Hancock opened his eyes and pushed himself up. "I never would have pegged you as anti-Ghoul Cait. Does Tommy Lonnegan know you hate us? Or do you hate us because of Tommy?"

She snorted. "I don't see what's anti-Ghoul about telling you off for creepin' on us. Or pointing out the God's honest truth that yer blinkers are blacker than yer pitch dark heart."

Hancock chuckled, "You got me. I'm just jealous she trusted you with the grenades. She never let me hold the really fun stuff."

"That's cause you'd blow yerself up, and probably her too, ya daft Druggie!"

Hancock let his grin stretch out. He knew from long experience that the way his skin moved over teeth and jaw unnerved most of the Smoothies. But Cait's expression didn't change. "Look who's talking."

She smirked. He raised an inquiring eyebrow and after a moment of consideration Cait favored him with a nod. Hancock jumped up from the couch and with a flourishing gesture opened his coat to reveal naught but his double-barrel. He shook out his sleeves, holding them as open as the well-worn wool would allow for her inspection. With a grand step backward, he was under one of the alleyways many scaffolding platforms. He reached up and in a moment found the hidden catch. With a flick of his finger, the compartment above swung open, a waterfall of chems, meticulously stashed over the weeks, poured out, bouncing off his hat and rolling over his shoulders.

Cait broke out into a peal of high-pitched, sharp laughter. A surprising contrast to her usual speaking voice. He took a bow, and a few more doses of Jet tumbled down from his hat where they'd found purchase.

"Is that all you got Mr. Mayor?" she asked.

"You can do better?" he asked crossing his arms and shaking a box of Mentats loose from his sash with a little hop.

Cait dipped her chin and raised her eyebrows in a look of pure incredulity. She stomped over to the manhole cover near the north gate. She stuck two fingers in her mouth, lowered her lids in faux-seduction, though only in the sense that she wasn't really trying, because it would have worked for him, then yanked them out with an audible pop. She dropped down and slid them into one of the cover's holes, shot him a wicked grin, then sprang back up, bringing the manhole cover with her in one smooth motion.

Dangling from the underside, hung a glittering string of swinging, clinking, liquor bottles. Cait grinned triumphantly. Hancock pointed to the giant glowing radroach enthusiastically licking the water that had condensed on a bottle of Bobrov’s Best. “That’ll be enough of that,” she said, cocked a leg back and kicked the bug squarely in its thorax. It flew off and smacked into the wall with a satisfying splat.

Hancock stepped out of the small mountain of chems piled up around him and over to Cait. He bent down with exaggerated formality and removed the lowest hanging bottle, grinned, and declared “To your health!” before tipping it back.

\-----------

“Come on!” he whined, “it’s fun!”

Cait was staring down at him from the scaffolding, looking beyond dubious. “What the shite is wrong with your life that this is what you’d do for fun?”

“There’s nothing wrong with me!” Hancock shouted back. “It’s fun. It’s a thrill, and it doesn’t require bashing any one’s face in, which I know is where you prefer to get your jollies.”

“Only consenting adults,” she rejoined. She took another look down at the piled mattresses waiting on the ground fifteen feet below. “Nah, this is daft. I’m coming down.”

“Are you really that scared of a little height?” Hancock asked. “Does Etta have to carry you up the high rises?”

“Feck no, ya fecking gowl! Because I don’t jump off the buildings. I stay on the solid parts like a non-impaired person.”

“Fine! Come down you Scaredy Cat! Or should I say Scaredy Cait! I think I just found your new nickname.” He crowed, laughing at the joke more than it deserved.

“I’m not scared! I just don’t do things that are mental.” Cait shot back. “I tell you what, you shoot yourself in the face, and then I’ll jump off this thing.”

It was too late though he had fastened on to the name like a mongrel on some poor settler’s shin. “Scaredy Cait! Scaredy Cait!” He sang out, whirling about in some sort of high-kneed jig.

“Fuck!” She yelled. Then after the briefest of pauses, “Okay, what do I do again?”

The jig ceased as if by magic. “You stand with your heels on the edge of the platform. You take a deep hit of Jet. Then you let yourself fall backwards onto the mattresses. It’s the most amazing thing, and it won’t hurt. I swear on my honor as the mayor of Goodneighbor.”

He caught the mumbled end of, “...Mayor of North Shitberg,” but she was repositioning herself as instructed. He watched as Cait lined herself up with the tallest part of the mattress pile, took out an inhaler and gave it shake. “If this kills me, I’m gonna straight-up murder you!” She called down then took the hit.

Hancock recalled, through the kaleidoscope clarity that colored all his early memories, the first time he had tried this. The older members of the unwashed group of urchins he ran with had been going on about how _incredible_ and _awesome_ the sensation was. So of course, the next time he had managed to get his hands on a half dose of jet, he’d piled up straw and the softest garbage he could find by the outfield wall and jumped.

It was just as good as they’d described. The feel of time slowing down. The wind whispering past your head as you plummeted to the earth. The almost certainty that you were going to die, but not caring at all because MAN this was living! This was a RUSH!

He watched with delight as she shifted her weight to put the center of her mass beyond the scaffold, then let gravity take over. Cait fell, her back arched, arms straight over her head, accelerating down, then landed with a wet _wuuumph_ into the dirty mattresses.

“ _Fuuuck_.” Cait breathed out.

“My turn! My turn!” he clapped, already running over to the ladder.

\--------------

They stopped only when they ran out of Jet. Hancock tried it once more after downing an entire bottle of vodka, but not only was the rush not there, he hurled the clear liquid back up as soon as he stood up. Cait had shouted and threatened him with dire physical harm when he tottered toward her, and only after he’d washed out his shirt and coat with a bucket of rain water had she let him take up a spot near her on the couch.

Night had fallen, and Hancock was letting his unfocused eyes scan the heavens. The sweep of the Milky Way cut across the small patch of sky that looked down on the alley and he was trying, unsuccessfully and not for the first time, to count all the stars in that broad band.

“Do you believe what they say about the stars?” Cait asked.

He held the number 148 in his head and tried to remember that he was on the blue one in a line with two kinda red ones. He wasn’t sure he would be able to find the exact one in that gorgeous wash, but then again, remembering was a lot easier with Mentats. “What do they say?”

“That they’re huge balls of, like, gas that are out in space, twirling and burning. That they’re so much bigger than anything you could possibly imagine, and that they’re so far away even if you were up in space and you fired a bullet at the nearest one, the bullet wouldn’t get there in your lifetime, or your kid’s lifetime, or their kid’s lifetime.”

Hancock hoisted himself into a more vertical sitting position. “Who said that?”

“Etta,” Cait answered simply.

“Is that a topic you and Etta discuss frequently?” Hancock asked, genuinely curious. During their trips, they’d mostly talked about the effects of various chems, or the merits of shotgun diplomacy.

“Nah, not really,” she answered. “She’s just been telling me a lot about the way the world used to be. She needed to pick something up in that place she uses up north. It got dark while we were hoofing it back, so we found a little campsite and bunked down until morning.” Hancock snickered and Cait gave him a swat, but there was no real violence in it.

“She started out pointing to the clumps of stars that kind of look like things, but only if you’re really using yer imagination. After an hour of that she went off about the stars and how it was okay that the world had ended up the way it did because there was probably somebody a lot like her and somebody a lot like me somewhere out there, and they were living easier lives somewhere the people hadn’t fucked things up so badly.”

Cait’s voice, usually so hard edged, had started to meander a bit during the story and by the end it was positively contemplative. He considered what she’d said, and after rolling it around a bit, decided he liked the idea of other Hancocks running around in places the bombs had never fallen, living with their families, not needin’ to kill their brothers…

“I don’t know if I buy it, but I hope it’s true.”

They rested there in companionable silence, broken only occasionally by soft munching sounds; Mentats for Hancock, mole rat chunks for Cait.

“Cait,” Hancock started, the question bubbling to the surface of its own accord, “How’d you end up with Lonegan? Not that I’m judging,” he added hastily. “I’m not exactly know for hanging out with the quality if you know what I mean, but Tommy, Tommy’s a scumbag.”

Cait stayed quiet for long enough to make him she was politely ignoring the question, but finally asked, “Hancock, do you really give a rat’s arse, or are ya just prying?”

“I truly do give a rat’s arse,” Hancock answered with absolute sincerity. “Cross my heart.”

“Alright, when I first got Diamond City I didn’t have nothing to me name except me boots and me bones. I figured in a settlement that size there’d be some way for a brawler to make a few caps, little did I know that the upstanding Mayor McDonough had just shut down the one fighting pit they did have.”

“Yeah, he hates anything fun,” Hancock interjected.

“Yeah well, so there I was, broke, hungry, thirsty, and no good way of…”

What Hancock thought was turning out to be the beginning of a very promising story was interrupted by a spear of light that tore a fiery path across the western part of the sky. It was followed by an enormous roar and explosion that shook the walls of the buildings around them.

“Jesus _fecking_ Christ!” Cait called out. “Please tell me ya saw that?”

“Oh yeah,” he said, “we’re not nearly high enough hallucinate that. Although this one time…”

“Hancock!” she shouted. “What the name of God Almighty was that?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “It wasn’t no soft, fluffy ball of gas though. And the fact that we’re still here discussing it does at least suggest it wasn’t an A-bomb.” He fished the rest of the Mentats out of the box and popped them in his mouth. “You wanna to go check?”

\---------

“Stay low you nut. You want to get us shot out here?” Cait hissed. She was crouched near an old bus stop, head barely peeking past the wooden frame.

“Relax,” he dismissed. “These things have got glowy vision.” He pointed at his eyes, nearly poking himself in his exuberance. “I’ll see anything coming a mile away.”

Chips of pavement flew up into the air three paces to Hancock’s left, followed immediately by the crack of the shot, and the sound of the bullet striking the street.

Hancock spun on his heels in the direction of the report. “Is that the best you’ve got?!” He shouted into the night. A breath of wind passed by his ear nub, and there was another splash of road fragments from a few feet behind him. “Cheese it!” he yelled, spinning again and high tailing it to the west.

He heard Cait spring from her hiding spot and follow, the beat of her footsteps ceasing every few moments, presumably as she took cover behind some bit of twisted metal or pile of rubble. Hancock’s only concession to safety was a zig-zag running pattern, though even that was due in no small part to his elevated BAC.

He didn’t slow down until they reached the pond. He saw a concealing curtain of tall grasses and threw himself behind it. He lay there, clutching his chest, and drawing in deep breaths when he heard the stompy crunch crunch of approaching boots.

“Get up you windbag,” Cait said, kicking the sole of his riding boot. “I can’t believe how out of shape you are.”

“Beat. You. Here. Didn’t. I.” He wheezed. He gave himself another minute before letting Cait pull him to his feet. “Besides, I have an office job. It doesn’t allow for much in the way of exercise.”

His success in not getting shot notwithstanding, he adopted Cait’s more cautious movements for the rest of their journey. He couldn’t help feeling a little silly stalking through the woods, given that the worst thing out here was probably a pissed off Radstag, but the indignity of Cait getting to say ‘I told you so’ if he died would be so much worse than feeling a little silly.

Even creeping along like that, it didn’t take them long until they saw evidence of whatever it was that had come down. A tree with half its top missing, another one with a fire flickering in its branches. They followed the trail of destruction left by the… thing that had come down. The direction it had made its descent, marked as it was by felled trees and larger brush fires, was apparent to even a city slicker like him.

Cait made it up one final hill before him and ‘Ooohed.” Hancock was perhaps not completely recovered from his little jog, and as such, took a bit longer to make it up. The sight laid out below was definitely “Ooo” worthy though.

Amidst smashed tree trunks, and burning undergrowth, a silver disc, maybe thirty feet in diameter, gleamed in the moonlight. The center was raised and engines in the rear of the craft still hummed and glowed blue.

“What is it?” Cait asked, not even bothering to conceal the awe in her voice.

Hancock’s black eyes went wide. He had been a great fan of the pulps as a child. And the most easily scroungeable of those usually concerned little green men that flew around in craft exactly like the one hissing and crackling below them. “It’s a UFO,” he answered.

“An ufo?” The awe disappeared, replaced by angered confusion. “What in hell is an ufo?”

“No, it’s an acronym,” he explained. “It stands for Unidentified Flying Object.”

“How does that work?” Cait asked, natural credulity displacing her momentary wonder. “It’s not really unidentified if you know what it is, right? And this one ain’t flying no more. I guess this one could be an Identified Fallen Object. Or maybe an Unusual Feckin’ Oblong… thing.”

“Cait, where were you when they were handing out imagination?”

“Beating the shite outta some nerd who imagined they could take me on,” she replied instantly.

Hancock nodded judiciously. “Okay, good answer.”

“Look!” she cried. “There’s some kinda green goo leading away from that thing.” Hancock followed her pointing finger. Sure enough, there was a big pool of green stuff just outside of the UFO. A few feet to the north another, smaller puddle.

He looked at her. She looked at him. “Be a shame to come all this way and not see this all the way through.” Cait grinned, and in the harsh flickering light of the fires, it looked downright devilish.

“A damned shame,” he agreed, matching her smile, with a wide one of his own.

They followed the trail of green goo north a few dozen yards when it terminated in front of the mouth of a cave. “Ladies first,” Hancock offered with a sweep of his arm.

“Nah, if anyone’s getting vaporized by whatever it was came out that ifo, its you. Sides, you’ve got those glowy eyes, remember?”

“Alright, age before beauty then,” he said, and swept inside.

On the one hand, chewin’ Mentats did make it easier to see, on the other hand there wasn’t exactly golden sunlight pouring through the entrance neither to help illuminate the place. He did have a lighter on him and took it out.

Between the lighter and the feeble, but steady light of the glowing mushrooms in the cave, he was just able to make his way forward without tripping over anything. He heard Cait slip down behind him, and was comforted that she would have his back.

He had only gone a dozen or so paces when he heard something stirring to his left. He spun and held out his lighter. In its flickering illumination he could just make out a person lying on the cave floor, back braced against the wall. He took a step forward, ready to BB or B (Brawl, Blast, or Bullshit), except it wasn’t a person. The head was bulbous and green, and not the green of his unfortunate glowing kindred either. The body, though concealed by a silvery jumpsuit, was too short for a human. The arms and legs were too spindly for a person as well.

The realization whacked him like a board. This was it! This was the thing from all those old pulp comics from his childhood! A real life, Honest-to-God, motherfucking ALIEN! He didn’t know what to do. He froze, unable to decide whether to run over there and hug it, or to jump up and down with joy.

The alien, No! _The Being from another world_ , raised a hand to shield its too large eyes from the dim light thrust out at it. Hancock lowered the lighter. It was up to him. This was the moment humanity made contact.

The words emerged on their own. Pulled from someone barely remembered juvenile fantasy, but ready all the same when they were needed. “Greetings on behalf of the planet Earth. We mean you no harm.”

The Visitor stirred, hoisting itself to a more upright sitting position, but did not speak.

“I am John Hancock, Mayor of Goodneighbor, the most welcoming city in the Commonwealth, formerly of these United States of America.”

Still nothing.

Hancock wracked his melon. This wasn’t how it had gone in the comics. Either the aliens were rip roaring around the country, abducting square-jawed men and buxom blondes for the purposes of conducting lascivious experiments on them, in which case the army got called out and would shoot them down after a defeat or two once the scientist finished whatever superweapon he’d been working on; or the aliens were the friendly sort, in which case they had studied our language and were impressed by man’s adventurous spirit, and they would choose some lucky kids to go explore the galaxy with them. They sure as shit didn’t just sit there, staring at the fella who found them.

Another story floated to the surface and he decided to try it that way. He stuck out the hand that wasn’t holding the lighter, and with one figure began to transcribe a circle. “Earth. Then he dipped the finger downward and transcribed a bigger circle. “The Sun.” Circle. “Mercury.” Circle. “Venus. Where the Venutians live.” Circle again. “Earth.”

The alien’s hand trembled and began to rise. It extended a quadruple jointed finger and began to tentatively draw a circle in the air.

“ _KRAAACK_!” An explosion tore through the air inches behind his ear nub and the alien’s head exploded, spraying him with goo and bits of flappy green flesh. His head pounded and his ear was in so much pain he could see the little waves of pain dancing in front of his face. He turned around, one slow foot at a time, to face Cait.

Thankfully, he hadn't dropped the lighter, and it showed her standing there, shotgun raised, still directed at the Visitor. One of its barrels exhaled smoke which twirled prettily in the flickering light. She lowered the gun as slowly as he’d turned.

“What. The. _Fuck_?!”

“He was drawing on you!” she shouted, and the words echoed crazily around the small cave.

“We were communicating!” Hancock yelled back.

“You were never! He was reaching for his piece!”

“He was reaching out to a fellow intelligent being. He was trying to build a bridge between species.”

“He was trying to build a tunnel through you, ya looney. Hold that light up!” Hancock held out the lighter as Cait tromped over to the ruined waste of a creature. She kicked at the silver-clad arm it had been pointing with, then stepped over the body and lifted the other arm with the steel-shod toe of her boot. It lifted a few inches before a rounded red and blue device fell out of the hand and bounced cheerily along the ground. Cait stared at Hancock, eyebrow raised, hands set defiantly on her hips.

Hancock’s jaw fell open, but he recovered quickly. “That could have been a communicator!”

Cait picked up the thingy and aimed it to his left and fired. A ball of blue light issued forth with an otherworldly _bwwaazap_ and vaporized a good sized chunk of the cave wall. “You want me to communicate it at you?”

Hancock looked down and tried to imagine the hole that thing would put in him, but got distracted by the green goop splattered over the front of his coat. “Aww geez Cait! Look at what you did to my coat.”

“What I did? How was I ta know his head was as juicier than a rotten melon? ‘Sides, now maybe you’ll wash the damn thing.”

“I can’t wash it! It’s a national heirloom!”

“It’ll be fine, ya whiner, I’ve seen you spill Clair’s stew on it, and that’s nastier by far. Hell, you puked all over it three hours ago.” Hancock wanted to retort, but both of those were true, and frankly the coat had seen worse than even those sorry events. Cait was already legging it out of the cave, and dead or not, Hancock didn’t want to be alone with the Visitor.

Outside felt a lot less stuffy, and Hancock felt like he could think much clearer here. “Come on,” he said. “Beantown Brewery is just over the hill. I’ll clean my damn coat and we can get you a drink for your troubles.”

“Fine by me,” Cait said with airy agreement. Hancock led the way, but he could just imagine the jaunty “I was right and you were wrong” swing she’d be putting into her hips right now.

\-----------

The brewery wasn't that far from the crash site, but Hancock still felt an enormous sense of relief when it hoved into view, imposingly blocky, and now graveyard silent. He’d been with Etta when they’d kicked down its doors to rescue the hapless Yafim. Hancock had dashed ahead, ready to show this stranger how the Mayor of Goodneighbor took care of business and had immediately gotten pinned down behind a stack of crates by a torrent of submachine gun fire. Etta had swooped past him and filled the place with her righteous fury, dropping one raider, after another, until the only things left in the building were cooling bodies and the echoes of her gun. In the end, his biggest contribution to the mission had been to help to carry away some of the chems Yafim had pocketed.

He opened the door for Cait, who dropped him a faux-curtsey and sauntered in. The brewery was just as Hancock remembered. Dingy, dark, and filled with empties. Thankfully, he also remembered a stash of Gwennet Stouts by the bottling machinery that they’d been too overloaded with guns and ammo at the time to carry out at the time. But his previous loss, was his present gain. He rushed over to the corner where he remembered the booze was, laying waste on the way to the radroach population that was trying to claim the brewery in humanity’s absence.

The bottles were exactly where he’d left them, along with a few extra doses of jet for good measure. He tossed one over to Cait and picked up the crate. If he was going to spend the rest of the night doing as something as boring as cleaning, he was damn sure going to be loaded while doing it. Hancock made one last stop to a utility closet where he easily found a box of Abraxo. Thus armed, he lead the way back down to the river.

Hancock downed two beers in quick succession before emptying his pockets and stripping out of his coat and shirt. He waded out in a shallow of the river and felt the tickle of radiation around his legs. Cait had found a stump near the riverbank to perch on, and at that distance, he had no problem hearing her snicker.

“What?!” he shouted over her way.

“Nothing! Just do yer washing and let’s get outta here.”

Hancock dunked the clothing in the water then dumped Abraxo in around it. He wasn’t really sure what to do next, having had very little experience with scrubbery. As a kid, he’d worn his filthy rags until they’d literally fallen off him, as an adult he’d just bought or stolen new clothes, and as the mayor he could just get whoever was on his shit list to take care of the washing.

Vainly, he mashed the coat and shirt into the highest concentration of bubbles, dunked them up and down a few times, then yanked them out and spun them around above his head.

Cait laughed so hard she fell off her stump. “What the feck do ya think yer doing? Is that how you wash things in Goodneighbor?”

“No, I DON’T wash things in Goodneighbor. That’s one of the perks of being mayor.”

“Is another perk that nobody laughs at your scrawny little body?”

“What?! Hancock looked down. Okay, the leathery brown skin over his ribs was tight enough to see the individual bones. And okay, his ab muscles hadn’t really survived his transition to ghoul. And okay, his arms weren’t as beefy as they used to be, but that didn’t make him scrawny! He was sinewy. He was… scrappy! “You take that back!”

“Or what? You’ll come over here and give me the old one-two?” Cait shrieked in delight.

“I’ll give ya something,” Hancock mumbled. He looked down at the coat, where the green stain still shone brightly. He dumped some more Abraxo directly on it and scrubbed it against itself, trying hard not to damage the ancient fabric. This method produced better results, but after another ‘spin-cycle’ the stain was very much still present. Hancock put the coat through another scrub session and had started pondering if it would be worth it to offer Cait some caps to come down here scrub it for him, or whether the bargaining would cause more embarrassment than it was worth when the world around him got very still.

He looked up to see that Cait had slid off her stump and was staring out into the trees south of the brewery. Hancock followed her gaze and saw two green mountains moving toward them. He froze. Raiders, giant bugs, the Mirelurks foolish enough to peek their shells out of the sewers, and gangsters trying to take a cut of his profits were all things he could handle and would gladly throw himself in the fight against; Super Mutants were not a foe he would ever willingly court.

He dipped down in the water, trying to make his profile as low as possible, but there wasn’t much in the way of cover out in the river. He glanced longingly at his shotgun lying on a rock by the bank. He stepped toward it, but Cait waved a frantic hand of denial at him.

The mutants drew closer and their low gravestone voices boomed out over a world gone quiet in their presence. “It IS this way! Dead Eye told me beer was in building by City River with pipes on the side and red sign on top.”

“How would Dead Eye know this?” the second mutant boomed. “Dead Eye has not left the Post in two fists full of days. Also, Dead Eye is blind.”

“Dead Eye was not always Dead Eye,” the first mutant retorted. “He used to be Good Nose, and he knew many useful things. He knew where good bending metal was for helmets. He knew when Big Kicker was to become a Mindless One. He knew your wound would feel better if you stopped poking it with the knife.”

“I was only poking at it with knife to get out bullet,” the second huffed defensively.

They had gotten within fifty feet of where Hancock was crouching, and even though they weren’t looking in his direction, he could feel his ruined skin trying to goose-pimple. Even as the fear took hold of him, he tried to assess the situation. The one in front had a pipe rifle, but the other one only had a board with nails in it. As long as they could keep their heads down and out of boardsmashing range, they had a pretty good chance of getting away.

Cait’s arm swung out in a whiplash arc, a small green egg leaving her hand at its apogee, and with it his hope for a clean escape. Hancock counted two, then ducked into the water. Even submerged he managed to feel the explosion.

He was up again and rushing toward the shore even before the ringing stopped. A half dozen steps and he was scooping up his gun with one hand, and a Jet inhaler with the other. He dove behind a rock and took a deep hit. The world slowed to a sensible crawl. A pace he could take in, analyze and react to without having to worry about getting tagged and not even knowing where the shot came from. It wasn’t nearly as fun as the falling game, but it had kept him alive for longer than he had had any right to expect.

He stepped out from behind the rock and pushed his way through the molasses towards the mutants. The one with the board was down and bleeding from huge gouges on its left thigh and side. The one with the rifle had taken ludicrously ineffectual cover behind a tree that was maybe a third his width. It was already coming out from behind the singed trunk. Hancock did not hesitate, he raised his sawed-off and fired both barrels.

He felt the kick as a slow, but building pressure against his wrist and arm as two cones of fire poured out of the barrels. They stretched out languorously for the length of his hand, before pluming sideways into yard wide mushrooms of red and orange. The forward motion of the shot pulled the air along behind, squeezing the bells of the ‘shrooms inward, while simultaneously rolling them forward. It was quite honestly the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

The shot expended, the gun bucked, but with a force Hancock knew from long experience how to control. He flicked his eyes forward and watched with pleasure as the first few bits of shot bit into the mutants chest. Tiny spurts of blood blossomed out from its green skin, almost perfect mirrors of the mushrooms of fire that had sent those bullets speeding on their way.

Hancock exulted in the hit for a fraction of an instant before realizing that the blast had caused the mutant no lasting harm. The bulk of the shot had struck the stick of a tree the mutant had taken cover behind. Curls of bark and slivers of tan wood separated themselves from the trunk and spun away on chaotic trajectories, some of these missiles even flew at the super mutant, peppering him with wooden spall. However they were even less effective at stopping it than the pellets had been.

Indeed, without missing a beat, the mutant began to raise its own gun. Hancock saw the stubby, branch-thick finger wrap itself around the screw the gun had for a trigger and begin to squeeze. His feet were not well positioned for a dive in either direction, and even that only gave him 50-50 odds of getting out of the way. Instead, he let his legs go slack. He dropped backwards, and even in that truncated plunge was able to catch a brief hit of that wonderful falling sensation.

In the next instant, three little _zipping_ noises passed by just above his head. His back hit the mud and he pushed into it with glacial speed. The Jet giving him ample time to appreciate the feeling of cold wet ground compressing against his naked back. Just as the muck began to squirt from his sides and lap up at his ribs the world lurched back to its regular speed, and the mutant was bounding toward him with unreal speed.

The reversion to ‘normal’ perception always left his head spinning, and lying on the ground half-naked covered in mud didn’t help matters. He couldn’t get up in time to scamper away and the mud gave no purchase, which made squirming back nearly impossible too. The mutant was yards away now and Hancock with the sad realization that this was it for him, offered a silent prayer to whatever irradiated gods might be out there that Goodneighbor would carry on without him.

The mutant raised the barrel of its gun as it bounded toward him. Hancock still had enough of the Mentats in his system that he couldn’t help reflecting on how strange it was that an object, poorly constructed in an afternoon, could put an end to such a beautiful and subtle thing as a life, forged in the Commonwealth’s crucible and tempered by experience over years. Nonetheless, Hancock was still staring down the business end of a collection of junk that was about to put an end to him.

A shrill keening flew over his head, followed by the red and brown mass of Cait diving in between him and oblivion. An enormous _KRAAAK_ thundered out from her gun, slightly less deafening for that fact that she was at least firing it off outside, and not next to his goddam ear!

The mutant’s gun exploded into a shower of screws, rotten wood, and metal shrapnel. The mutant’s arm exploded into a shower of blood, green flesh, and bone shrapnel. The mutant bellowed his pain as Cait landed roughly in front of it. In one motion, made smooth by hundreds of repetitions, she cracked open her shotgun, sending two smoking cartridges flying off into the mud. Simultaneously, she slipped two more out of her pocket and slammed them home. She raise the shotgun, but before she could fire, the mutant took a single step forward and struck her with a backhand that sent her flying to the riverbank. Holding the remains of its ruined arm, the mutant turned its billboard-sized back to them and ran.

Hancock finally managed to find some purchase in the mud and scrambled down after Cait. She had landed hard on her back, and was still prone when he got to her. Thankfully, she had managed to keep hold of her gun and was patting herself down for more shells.

Hancock held out a hand and she took it, hoisting herself up, but throwing him forward, and off balance in the process. He stumbled forward into the water. He straightened and beheld an even worse sight than the muties. His white shirt and red coat had been pulled out into the current and were even now, merrily floating down the Charles.

Without a second thought, Hancock threw himself after them. His coat, his badge of office, Christ above, the source of his fucking name, was about to disappear down the Wealth’s biggest trash chute. This would not stand!

“Hancock!” Cait was yelling at him. “Hancock! Get yer bleedin’ booze-bespotted arse back here and help me finish this fecker!”

“I can’t!” he shouted back. He slipped on a submerged rock and plunged under the surface. He popped back up, and sputtered, “I have to get my coat!”

“Ferget yer damn rag. We need to kill this green bastard before he goes and gets ‘is friends!”

“I can’t lose it!” he shouted back, “It’s a national heirloom!” And then he was in it. The gentle tickle of radiation became a hailstorm of pinpricks. It didn’t hurt, not precisely, but the sensation was overwhelming and the knowledge that if he were Cait or Etta, this would be enough to kill him in moments, was none too comforting.

Hancock struggled in the water. The current was clawing him forward and down. He kicked back as best he could, but there hadn’t exactly been swim lessons in DC when he was a kid. Nor had he felt the need to learn given that a dip like this one would have fatal before his little ‘accident.’

For all that, he made solid progress toward the coat. He chased it past the USS Riptide, past CIT and the Longfellow Bridge, even past Ol’ Glowy’s island. He never could figure out how that poor bastard had wound up there. Maybe they’d been on that little raft when the bombs fell and had been marooned there ever since? Maybe they’d been taking a nap on the thing and it had floated away? Regardless of how they’d gotten there, even in his current state Hancock couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for everybody’s favorite lighthouse on the Charles.

Finally around the Craigie Drawbridge the coat got caught on a buoy and Hancock, just barely still able to keep his head above the water, splashed over, grabbed it, and dragged himself into the shallows. Somehow he found the strength to belly flop up onto the cobblestone circle by the museum. He lay there unable to move a muscle, clutching his namesake’s coat in shaky hands.

\--------------

It was still dark when he came to. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but considering how wiped he was, it was unsurprising that he’d passed out. He didn’t feel concerned. Waking up half-naked, semi-delirious, and completely unaware of how he’d gotten here was an experience he was abundantly familiar with.

Experience and many wandering trips around the city had taught him how to quickly take his bearings. He was on the little circle in the lee of the old science museum, really not that far from Goodneighbor. He just as quickly identified the sound that had woken him; the tromp of boots and clank of junky armor.

As quietly as possible, he crept into the shelter of one of the stunted little plants that still grew on here. If he was lucky the raiders would just pass him by. If he wasn’t that lucky, well, he started slipping back into his coat and prepared himself to jump back into the river.

A whistle split the night and the crunching of boots stopped abruptly. Hancock froze and the gentle lapping of the river once again became the only sound. The wind brought the rustle of cloth and a few low murmurs to him. A chuckle began somewhere out there, quickly overtaking the other sounds and rising in pitch and intensity until it became quite the laughing fit.

“Why Mister Mayor, whatever could you be doing out here on a night like tonight?” a man’s voice wheezed. For a moment, Hancock thought he recognized the speaker, but there was something in the tone that wasn’t quite matching up.

Hancock didn’t move a muscle.

“Perhaps you’re just out for an evening constitutional? Or maybe here to speak with the little folk, eh? Learn about the problems that afflict those on the outside of Goodneighbor’s protective embrace?”

Old friend or no, Hancock wasn’t going to wait around to chance it. He made to lunge for the water, but only one arm had managed to get into the correct sleeve, and the trailing tails had snagged on one of the shrubs thorny branches. He went down hard, chin first. He was up in another second, but a sharp report and an explosion of cobblestone next to his feet stayed a second lunge.

“Na uh uh,” the voice taunted. “We wouldn’t want you taking off so soon, not when we’ve finally managed to get some of the vaunted Mayor Hancock’s oh-so-valuable time.”

Hancock stood with as much dignity as he could muster, and finished putting on the coat. “I do try to find time for all my constituents, but I’m thinking you fellahs aren’t Goodneighbor material. There’s a certain friendliness inherent to citizenship there.”

“Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong,” the voice announced. Hancock reeled as a ghost from his past stepped forward into the moonlight. Brown eyes so dark they melded into the pupils, trademark shit-eating grin, Stetson hat on top of long shocks of stringy white hair. Marly McGregor, he looked exactly the same as he had when he’d been helping to run Goodneighbor as Vic’s sadistic lieutenant, except now he wore a black handkerchief around a neck Hancock himself had slashed.

“Marly, I didn’t recognize you without the blood gushing out of your neck,” Hancock said jocularly.

“Hahaha,” Marly said flatly. “Well John, you and I are going to have plenty of time to get reacquainted. Days and days if I know my business. Bring him along fellahs!”

A half dozen raiders surged forward. Their mismatched gear looked like shit, but would have been more than enough to keep Hancock from taking any of them down barehanded. And of course, each and every one of them was armed. His arms were jerked behind his back and his hands bound. One of them, a kid really, but one with a scar that cut across one eye and down to her mouth and an undeniably kick-ass mohawk, yanked him along by his lapel.

“Hey!” Hancock growled, “Watch the coat.”

The kid grinned and with a mighty throat clearing noise, hawked a huge loogie on it.

Hancock smiled his special flesh-ought-not-slide-that-way smile. “What’s your name kid?”

“Joyce.”

“You’re going to regret that Joyce.” Whether his grin had had its intended effect went unknown as someone jammed a bag down on his head and another person shoved him forward.

They pushed and prodded him for a few minutes, then up a ramp, then up some stairs, and finally into a small box that rose and swayed as only a construction lift will. Finally he was pushed out on a more solid surface, though one that was still very evidently open to the wind.

Someone thrust him to the floor and whipped the bag off his head. Marly was standing in front of him, rifle held loosely, but still ready for use. The massive beacon that was Diamond City shone to the west and across the river. The dimmer glow of Goodneighbor was also clearly visible to the east and across the Charles.

“Was the bag really necessary Marly? It’s not like I don’t know where we are, and I mean... come on,” Hancock gestured at the Commonwealth laid at below them. “You’re not exactly hiding out in your tree fort up here.”

Marly grinned, “It wasn’t, Hancock. Not anymore than you getting rid of Vic was.”

“Marly,” Hancock sighed, “I know he was your boss and all, and I can appreciate loyalty as much as the next man, but Vic was an asshole, and he was killing Goodneighbor. He needed to go.”

“Killing Goodneighbor?” Marly sneered, “Vic _WAS_ Goodneighbor. His pappy threw up the first wall next to the Rexford. Vic was born there! He made his first caps scrounging for Daisy and he bought the bullet that killed Lou the Boot from KL-E-O. Goodneighbor was always about chems, caps and killing. That is until you crawled out of God know-which sewer and fucked it all to hell with your ‘By the People’ nonsense.”

“Marly, if it had just been me that was unhappy, my ‘By the People’ nonsense would have died with me in an alley somewhere. Vic got tossed because his brand of leadership boiled down to, 'I get all the chems and caps, and anyone who disagrees gets killed.' You can’t run a city like that; it doesn’t make for good business.”

“Yeah well, agree to disagree on that specific point of civic governance,” Marly said. He tossed his gun over his shoulder and squatted down right next to Hancock, so they were fucked-up face to fucked-up face. “Not that its going to matter for that much longer. I don’t know how much you can see from down here, but I’ve managed to build up quite the,” he paused, apparently trying to find the right word. “Well let’s call it what it is. I’ve built up quite the gang, and as soon as I’m done torturing the hell outta you, I’m going to march my gang over there, kick down the doors, and take it back over. For Vic.”

“Vic’s dead,” Hancock said dryly.

“Alright, for me then,” Marly admitted, “But I will put up a plaque in memory of Vic!” He popped back up and pulled an enormous bowie knife out of a hip holster. “Now, where do you want to get started? The face, or the…” The knife flew out of his hand, along with at least one finger. A wet _thwaack_ sounded from behind him and a man tumbled over the side of the unfinished apartment building, still clutching Hancock’s erstwhile hood.

An explosion somewhere below rocked their building and a fusillade of gunfire ripped through the night. That volley was answered by a single shot, echoed by a man’s scream. Marly took cover behind a naked I-beam and began bandaging his hand. More shots rang out. More of Marly’s gang died noisily.

Hancock started laughing, “You missed your chance Marly my boy. Before your lot caught me by the river I was kicking up dust with Etta Hawkins.” Marly stopped wrapped the dirt encrusted cloth around his hand, and turned to look at Hancock. Hancock just grinned, and Marly’s face fell. You didn’t stay mayor long if your poker face wasn’t up to snuff.

“I’m glad you’re not trying to pretend you haven’t heard of her, because ain’t nobody not heard of the woman that took on the Gunners single-handed, and whooped their asses from Salem down to Quincy.” He could really feel himself getting into this. Frankly, it didn’t take much for his inner orator-cum-ringmaster to take over. “That’s right the gang you spent the past 4 years building is going to get ripped apart in four minutes by the Butcher of the Brewery. The Witch of the Wastes. The…”

“Fuck you Johnny!”

“Nah, I’m loyal to my lady,” Hancock inclined his head down to the building across the street where one of Marly’s men had just taken a bullet.

A little bit of the fire still smoldered in the man’s eyes. “You don’t have the equipment,” he snarled.

Hancock returned the defiant stare with a lecherous one. “I’ve got nimble fingers, don’t I? And don’t everybody say I’ve got a silver tongue.” He flicked it lasciviously. Marly’s face contorted in disgust and he spit. “Oh, I don’t disagree, but Etta’s got eclectic tastes, and she ain’t gonna be happy if you murder her latest fancy. On the other hand,” and he let his voice rise, an open door of salvation. “You cut me free, maybe toss in a few caps for our trouble, and well, then maybe she doesn’t need to eviscerate you and your crew.”

Another crackle of gunfire rippled out from the cover of a big red and white water tower on the adjacent building, and was again answered by a single shot.

“Time’s running out Marly,” Hancock said. “Every second you sit up here dithering is another one of your guys dead.”

“Alright Hancock,” Marly exploded. “You call off your friend and we let you live another rotten day.”

“Sold!” Hancock shouted, “to the savvy man in the front row!” Marly produced another enormous knife and Hancock turned around, presenting his bound hands. Marly had gotten most of the way through the ropes when two more shots rang out.

“Ah! Jaysus Feckin’ Christ!”

Marly paused. “That didn’t sound like the Witch of the Wastes.” He stepped to the edge of the floor and peered down into the night. “Somebody get a light on her!” Instantly a half-dozen spotlights snapped on. The beams lanced into the dark, tracing chaotic patterns at first, then converging like grasping fingers on the half-demolished building that anchored the western part of their camp.

One of the lights detonated with a shower glass, dimming one corner of the building, but the remainder were more than sufficient to reveal a flash of white skin and red hair.

Marly’s face contorted into a snarl of anger. “That’s not the Butcher!” he howled. “That’s just Cait! Fucking kill her!” He turned on Hancock, knife raised, hate shining out of his eyes like the spotlights below. He was apparently taking the deception quite personally.

Hancock jumped up and kicked out with both legs. They landed squarely on Marly’s chest. Hancock flew back and hit a wall hard. The gang leader stumbled backward, arms spinning crazily, tripped on the raised lip of the building’s siding and went over the edge.

Hancock scrambled over to the side just in time to witness Marly hit the ground ten stories below. A barely audible _whuumph_ reached Hancock an instant later.

Their leader’s death either went unnoticed by the gang, or they had collectively decided to honor his memory by carrying out his final order to, “Fucking kill!” because they kept up a withering barrage of fire at her position. Every few seconds one of Cait’s heavily accented curses made its way up to him.

He couldn’t exactly help from up there, but he would be damned to Dorchester if he wasn’t at least going to witness her fight. “Come on Cait,” he whispered to himself after seeing a bullet take out a chunk of masonry inches from her shoulder, “you’ve got this."

Unfortunately, the odds were too great for even a doughty scrapper like Cait to fight against. The gunfire kept her pinned down, and every few beats one of the raiders would toss a Molotov cocktail her way, their flames getting closer and closer to her cover. At last with a shouted, “Sod this gobshite for a game of soldiers,” she disappeared into the back of the building, only to reappear at street level a minute later. She tossed out three grenades to cover her retreat and took off down the parkway at full speed.

Some of the raiders broke cover to pursue, but there were still plenty of others in the camp. One enterprising pair started collecting caps and ammo from their fallen colleagues, and it wasn’t long before they came across the pancaked body of Marly McGregor. Their delight at acquiring a real pre-war gun was evident even from up here, unfortunately so was their distress when they realized just who they were looting.

They kicked up quite the fuss and it wasn’t long before a sizable number of the bandits had congregated around the body. Dumb as they were, it was pretty inevitable that one of them would figure out where it had come from, and a moment later the whole camp was hooting and pointing up at him like a troop of baboons.

“Faaahk!” Hancock hissed. He scrambled about looking for something to finish cutting through his bonds. He finally settled grinding it against a wicked looking piece of steel that jutted out from one of the ruined walls. Marly must have nearly gotten through it before Cait’s ill-timed shout because Hancock was able to saw off the rope in moments. And good thing too, as one of the raiders, smarter than the their ilk, had gotten to the roof of the water tower building and recalled the construction lift.

Hancock grabbed a piece of metal debris and jammed it in between the car’s wheels and the wire. There was an awful metallic whine and a shower of sparks, but it ground to a halt just inches from the edge of its little platform. “Ha!” he crowed. His triumph was short lived, as a storm of gunfire sent him diving behind the thing. Though at least they wouldn’t be coming at him that way.

A quick survey of the floor he was on showed that the only other way up was a stairwell, though it was suffering from some pretty serious structural integrity issues. Regardless, he crabwalked his way over there and started piling wreckage against the flimsy door. It took them a few minutes for them to get up there, but when they came his efforts proved to be of little effect. The door swung inward, Hancock swore, and ululating raiders poured out and over his makeshift barricade.

The pile of crap in front of the door did force them to come at him one at a time. He disarmed the first one, took his knife, and sent him over the edge. A well placed brick knocked the second one out, but he lost ground to numbers three and four before he could stick ‘em. Number five pushed him all the way to the opposite edge of the floor before a desperate dodge left her charging a hundred foot drop. The dodge left Hancock facing the cable that ran down to the shorter building below, and wheels started spinning.

His gaze darted from the cable to his coat, to cable, and he was about to go for it, but then he looked down to the other roof. A scrum of bandits waited in the shadow of the big red and white water tower, brandishing weapons and making lewd gestures. Hancock screwed up his face in distaste; for crying out loud he’d practically invented the randy raider bit! That said, retreat down the cable would probably not end well. With an obscene gesture back at his copy-cats, he jumped back into the fray, knifing number six before lucky number seven bopped him a good one. Hancock went down and the raiders piled on.

When the crushing weight of smelly armored bodies finally lifted, Hancock was hoisted up and thrust in front of Joyce.

“Let me guess, you got to Marly’s knife first so they made you Queen.”

She grinned. “Something like that.”

Hancock waited for her to start talking, making threats, issuing demands, etc., but she just stood there silently smiling. Finally he broke the silence, “Alright, so what’ll it be? 10,000 caps? Chems for life? Enough ammo to take over Diamond City? Or are you gonna follow in your dead boss’s footsteps and let me know in excruciating detail all the different ways you’re going to hurt me before slitting my throat?”

“Nope,” she said, “That was Marly’s thing, may he rest in peace. We’re just gonna kill ya and make sure everybody knows that nobody fucks with the Now Leasing Tower Gang and gets away with it.”

The raider gang roared its approval.

“Cutter go get some rope.” One of the bandits sneered at Hancock and dashed off. “Wally, Jax, get some wood. I want to make sure people can see Mister Mayor’s bloated corpse from a good long distance.”

It took them most of an hour to collect the materials and assemble the gibbet, even though it was just a braced horizontal arm attached to an upright strut. It looked awfully solid, not that it would have mattered if it fell apart the second after they kicked him off the edge. The noose was anchored ten feet out into space, if the thing collapsed he’d simply fall to his death.

One of the raiders cuffed his hands behind his back as Cutter slipped the noose around his neck. Jax prodded him out to the edge of the platform with the point of a bayonet. The crackle of gunfire sounded off in the distance. Hancock took his position as straight backed as possible.

He didn’t want to die. There were plenty of experiences that he still wanted to have, and not all of them chem related either. He would miss his friends, Etta for sure, Fahrenheit, Irma and most of the Watch, and he hoped they would miss him. He wished the best for Goodneighbor. It had saved him, and he liked to think he had saved it too. He prayed that the next Mayor wouldn’t change too much about it. All that said, he wasn’t afraid to die. He hadn’t been for a very long time.

“Hold up,” Bonnie said.

Hancock turned around to face. “Don’t tell me you’re getting soft now. Or did you just change your mind about the caps?”

“Nah, I just figured you deserved a little send off.”

“Don’t go to any trouble on my account.”

“Oh don’t worry, if half of what I hear is true that won’t be a problem.” Joyce stepped up to him and started patting him down. The top of her mohawk tickled his chin and neck and he bounced a little in surprise.

That was not at all what he’d been expecting. “Hey, it’s not that I ain’t game, but I’m not exactly in a position to reciprocate right now. What say you let me me out of these things and I show you just how much you’ve heard about me is true.”

Her questing hand brushed against his right hip bone, and the ground actually shook. “Ohh baby, one way or another let’s get this show on the road. I’ve never been good with delayed gratification.”

She withdrew her hand and held it up in front of him. She had found his one remaining dose of Jet. He did not at all like the wicked gleam in her eye. “One last hit, Hancock? For the road.”

“No thanks,” he answered. “I’ve been trying to cut back. My doc says they’re bad for my health.” Another burst of shots rang out behind him, and someone was yelling, but he couldn’t tear his eyes off of her scar-faced and she wasn’t looking anywhere but at him. She moved the inhaler to his mouth. Hancock bit down and pursed what little of his lips remained to him.

She winked, and fast as lightning, socked him in the gut. Hancock gasped and she depressed the inhaler. It wasn’t a deep hit, but it was enough.

Time slowed. She gave him an almighty shove, and off he went, swinging out into nothingness, at the end of a stately parabolic arc. The pain of the rope biting into his neck was otherworldly, like a ring of fire that was slowly sawing off his head. It focused his entire attention and he was sure this be the last sensation he felt. But as he descended, his body twisted and he was able to take in the impossible scene below.

An avalanche of green bodies had poured into the courtyard. Running at its head was a red, white and brown speck, hoofing it as fast as it could, even though it looked to Hancock like it was moving through molasses. Despite the pain Hancock smiled. Cait had come back for him, and in the most suicidal way he could have hoped for. 

The raiders that hadn’t come up to the top of the apartment building with their new boss were now pouring fire into the mutants, and it was having about as much effect as if they’d been shooting the river. Here and there a super mutant would separate from the rushing mass and go after a cluster of bandits, invariably with a terrible result for the bandits.

The arc reversed, so that Hancock swung back toward the building. The greater angle gave him a better view of the battle. A huge man, armed with a sledgehammer floated down from scaffolding to land amongst an eddy of mutants. He managed to shout, “Never should have come here!” before one of the mutants knocked him into next week. Another raider launched a rocket into the seething green mass, which blew ham and green legs all over the square. A perfectly aimed shot from a pipe rifle ended the possibility of an encore.

Hancock glanced back down at where Cait was running and quailed. The mutant immediately behind her was bare chested, and wore their usual dirty loincloth, but carried no weapon, only a blinking red light. She had a solid lead, but with its greater muscle mass and longer legs it was rapidly catching up.

He craned his neck down as far as it would go, but the pendulum motion of the noose had already reversed and he was again swinging back out over the now roiling square. She disappeared from his field of view, presumably into the building.

Slowed down ten fold, Hancock heard the mutant shout joyously, “Flee puny human! Flee from your DEATH!” Hancock was lifted into the air on a wave of blinding light and a thunderous roar like the world ending all over again. No longer being acted on by gravity alone, the grip of the noose lightened, allowing him to suck in a lungful. The sensation of getting that hit of oxygen was pleasure beyond anything he had experienced. In fact, he thought he might have just found the best high of his life. Then he was falling again.

Cut off from its foundations by the explosion, the unfinished apartment building cantilevered forward and began a leisurely collapse. Already on the forward swing, Hancock’s momentum carried him along an exaggerated path out into the wild blue yonder, until he was deposited, roughly, but alive onto the roof of the building across the square.

The apartment building continued to plummet until its top edge clipped the facade of the building Hancock was on. The grinding roar of brick against nearly vibrated him apart. The roof of the apartment building slid into view, tumbling bodies falling off it like water droplets.

Still taking in the world in slo-mo, Hancock was able to pick out a certain scar-faced, mohawked woman gripping onto a window sill for dear life. He winked at her, was able to enjoy her astonished face just before the accelerating roof smashed into the side of his building. The gibbet shattered in the collision, and the rope around his neck went completely slack.

Time snapped back into its normal flow, and Hancock stood there, the battle raging below him, utterly dazed. He wasn’t even going to try to process what had just happened to him. He was alive beyond all reasonable, and even unreasonable expectations of luck.

A super mutant stepped out from behind the red and white water tower and roared. It raised its right arm, which terminated not in a massive fist, but a spiked hunk of metal. “You wrinkled man!” It shouted. “You and red hair woman take Bullet Finder’s hand! Bullet Finder will take your hand and beat you to death with it!” Ah! This was more his speed.

The mutant made it a single step before a _KRAAAK_ took it from behind. The mutant spun, allowing Hancock to see the enormous hole that had been opened in its back. It collapsed, landed heavily at Hancock’s feet, and sighed, “Just. Wanted. Hand. Back.” before expiring.

Cait stood there, double barrels smoking.

“Well about damn time!” Hancock shouted.

Cait cracked a grin before climbing up and over the mutant and tossing him, still cuffed, over one shoulder. They descended a fire escape, skirting the on-going clash between raider and mutant as possible.

Cait turned south and trotted across the Longfellow Bridge with no apparent signs of discomfort at lugging him along. The sun was beginning to rise and Hancock could only twist his face away from its light.

“Hey Cait, would you mind switching me to the other shoulder? It’s a bit bright over on this one.”

Cait said nothing.

“Come ooon,” Hancock wheedled, “the giant ball of gas is getting in my eyes.”

Still nothing.

“I’ll let you have the first turn jumping off the scaffolding,” a rising note of hope in his voice. When she didn’t answer that either, he couldn’t help chuckling. “Yeah, I’m pretty done playing that game too. How about a nap? I’ll even let you have the comfy couch.”


End file.
